1. Field of the Invention
The disclosed device relates to card scanners with the capability of scanning multiple forms of recorded data from a surface of an ID card. In particular, the invention relates to an improved device and method for conveniently scanning, extracting, and decoding the common data recording methods typically included in modern ID cards such as barcodes, magnetic strips, or a photograph and text. More particularly, the invention pertains to a scanning device that combines the option to photograph the surface of an ID card with the ability to decipher the encoded information saved on either a magnetic strip or barcode.
2. Description of the Art
Identity-verification has become both a great benefit and serious concern in society. Computers and networks have greatly accelerated customer service, and often it is the human-controlled portions that delay a transaction. The more steps processed by a machine instead of a human, the faster, cheaper, and often more reliable, these automated and semi-automated processes can become. By allowing a computer to extract information from a reliable information source, we can minimize transactional delays and human error related to human-controlled identity gathering or identity verification.
ID card scanners and their inner workings have been disclosed in three issued U.S. patents and one published patent application. They are U.S. Pat. No. 6,802,452 issued Oct. 12, 2004, U.S. Pat. No. 7,131,592 issued Nov. 7, 2006, U.S. Pat. No. 7,505,928 issued Mar. 17, 2009, and U.S. Pub. Pat. App. No. 2009/0073503 published Mar. 19, 2009. The disclosures of the three patents and the one publication are hereby incorporated by reference.
Most adults in the United States carry ID cards as proof of identity and eligibility for certain activities. The most common government-issued ID card is a state driver's license, which typically displays one or more photographs of the card-owner and a text area that includes the owner's name, address, date of birth, gender, as well as a few basic physical identifiers such as height, weight, eye color, and hair color. State driver's licenses frequently also include the card-owner's signature. Most state-issued driver's licenses also carry that same information coded in some machine-readable form, for example a barcode (sometimes both 1-dimensional and 2-dimensional) and/or a magnetic strip. Some states also include a basic photograph of the card-owner in the machine-readable indicia.
Because these ID cards carry a large amount of information, have been verified by a reliable source such as the state Department of Motor Vehicles, are coupled with security/confidence mechanisms, and because people carry these ID cards almost everywhere, society has become dependent on ID cards as a means of identity and age verification in purchases, transportation security (at the airports and borders), and as a means to establish eligibility for age-restricted venues and purchases. While this information can be manually entered into a computer by reading the text from the front of an ID card, this information can be quickly extracted to view or archive by scanning the machine-readable coded indicia. Rather than have a person fill out an application or a cashier type in a customer's responses to a series of identification questions, that information can be rapidly communicated into a computer system by simply scanning the machine-readable indicia. The primary benefit is speed and efficiency, but by removing the human element from data entry, we can also avoid potentially costly mistakes such as misreading the card or incorrectly entering the data.
Nearly every government-issued ID card includes the card-owner's information in some form of machine-readable indicia—be that a magnetic strip or a barcode—and by enabling a system to scan either a magnetic strip or a barcode, the system will be capable of capturing information from almost any ID card. In addition to the personal information displayed on the card and coded in the machine-readable indicia, it can also be valuable to retain an image of the card front—including the card-owner's photograph—for records or security, as an alternative to asking a customer to take a photograph, for example. By quickly capturing standard customer information with a single swipe of the ID card, a business or security agent can quickly verify or record user information without unnecessarily annoying a customer or raising his or her concern during a gauntlet of personal inquiries.
The standard advance of technology is to shrink products and to accelerate processes, both with the goal of increasing convenience, also thereby decreasing the cost of a given objective. Two common bottlenecks for that process acceleration are security and reliability. People want processes to be very quick, yet still very reliable. A common way to accelerate processes while maintaining a high level of confidence in the outcome is to move as much responsibility as we can from the human to a machine. Automated recognition of items and products is a common step in accelerating many processes, ranging from the factory floor to grocery store cheek-out. Historically, machines cannot accurately identify and visually sort objects the same way that the human mind can, so sellers assign identification codes (the most common is the UPC or Universal Product Code) to items and mark each item with a barcode—a machine-readable version of that code.
A barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data. The first barcodes were vertically extended version of the dots and dashes used in Morse code. Modern barcodes have evolved to represent data by varying the width of and spacing between parallel lines. This series of machine-readable parallel lines can be referred to as either a linear or 1-dimensional (1-D) barcode. Linear barcodes are easily produced and can be read with cheap sensors, but they occupy a large area for the amount of data they contain. Advances in digital recognition have enabled modern barcodes to encode more information into a 2-dimensional (2-D) array to encode more information in a smaller space. The densely packed information in 2-D barcodes can also include redundancy systems, which may accurately capture information even if the entire image is not completely captured. The most common 2-D barcode used in ID cards is the PDF417 standard, which incorporates a series of stacked barcodes. The number 417 refers to the fact that each pattern in the code consists of 4 bars and spaces, and each pattern is 17 units long. Although 2-D machine-readable symbol systems rely on a variety of non-bar marks, the term “barcode” applies to both 1-dimensional and 2-dimensional machine recognizable patterns. A barcode can be recognized by a specially designed barcode scanner or extracted from a digital image and interpreted by software in a device such as a computer or smart phone.
A popular alternative machine-readable indicia format to the barcode is the magnetic strip. Magnetic strips typically contain 2 or 3 tracks on a magnetic area implanted in a plastic medium, and are frequently used in driver's licenses, bank cards, gift cards, and membership cards. The magnetic strip contains approximately the same information as displayed on the card or registered in a barcode. The magnetic strip can be read by passing the magnetic area by a magnetic bead in a particular direction. Usually this is achieved by swiping the card in a designated slot along a vector parallel to the magnetic strip; however, this scan can also be achieved by holding a card stationary and moving the magnetic read head across the magnetic strip by way of a simple motor or solenoid. As with a barcode scanner, a magnetic strip reader can not directly “read” information from an ID card, but rather it records and then translates the data according to either some industry standard (e.g., ISO/IEC 7810 or ISO 8583) or a proprietary standard recognized by both the strip-recorder and the strip-reader.
Alternative machine-readable coded indicia formats could include radio frequency identification (RFID) or holograms. A fingerprint, vascular pattern or other biometric scanner could also be readily incorporated to increase user recognition accuracy. RFID uses radio waves to transfer data from an electronic patch or RFID tag, which typically includes an integrated circuit for storing data and modulating/demodulating a radio frequency and an antenna for receiving and transmitting the signal. RFID tags can be active (including a battery) or passive (powered by the radio waves from the RFID reader). An RFID reader, which comprises at least a power source, an integrated circuit for modulating and demodulating radio frequencies, and an antenna for transmission and reception of data, can be relatively compact, and could easily fit around the unused area required for the digital camera lens's focal length. RFID tags can be read from significantly greater distances than magnetic strips or barcodes, which sometimes have to be contact-read. Passive RFID tags may be read from up to 6 feet away by a powerful emitting RFID reader, and active RFID tags can be read from even greater distances. The integrated circuit in an RFID tag can also store significantly more data than a barcode or magnetic strip. RFID tags have become smaller, cheaper to produce, and more popular in recent years. RFID tags have made appearances in bank cards, ski resort passes, membership cards, and theme park bracelets; it would not be a challenge to incorporate an RFID tag into an ID card. Similarly it would not be a challenge to incorporate an RFID reader into an ID scanner, either in conjunction with or as a replacement to barcode scanning or magnetic strip reading, in an improved ID card scanner with digital camera.
The final objective of the current improved ID card scanner is to provide a digital camera and light array capable of capturing an image of a surface of an ID card. By either holding an ID card in front of a digital camera with autofocus or by placing an ID card in a designated scanning area, the digital camera can capture an image of the surface of the card and transmit that image to a remote computer device. Information can be extracted from the digital image, including the text data—using optical character recognition (OCR) software—or the ID card owner's portrait. Some vendors or security personnel may wish to retain an image of the ID card's owner, and extracting a portrait from a photographed ID card can be both less invasive and more convenient than requesting a customer to pose for a photograph. Additionally, the text on the surface is the only ID card data that can be read by most human eyes, and it can be comfortable to see the data in the format with which we are familiar. By photographing the card surface, a human user may intuitively know where to look for sought information. The ID card scanner can transmit either or both the photograph of the surface or the extracted data from the surface. Optical character recognition (OCR) allows a machine to read the same printed letters that humans recognize for written communication. Either a processor within the ID scanner or a remote computer device could apply an OCR process to extract the data written in text on the surface of an ID card. In addition to the front surface of an ID card, the digital camera can also capture an image of the back surface, which could allow digital extraction of barcodes or verification of further security mechanisms.
Extracting data from multiple data storage mediums (e.g. magnetic strip, 2D-barcode, and RFID tags) allows a vendor or security personnel to compare the data from the different sources. A computer device could compare the data extracted from the barcode with the data extracted from a magnetic strip and alert a user that the data did not match, potentially preventing a security threat. Another example is that a computer device or user could visually compare the extracted portrait captured by the digital camera to the digitized portrait contained in a barcode, or even display a larger image for security personnel to compare to the card-holder to verify identity. Additionally, data captured from one coded indicia reader could improve the scan of data from another coded indicia reader or could queue specific image captures from the digital camera, such as imaging a specific area to check for a state-specific security feature or capturing an image while applying a specific frequency of light to energize and illuminate an otherwise invisible hologram or security feature. Both the barcode and magnetic strip in state driver's licenses identify the issuing state, which could inform the device or user exactly where to expect specific security features, such as holograms, patterns, and color changes. The system could extract from the magnetic strip that the specific Driver License was issued by the California DMV and what year it was issued, therefore drawing a user's attention to areas where a specific security feature (e.g., the bear holograms, multicolor half dome, or blue butterfly) should exist, better preparing untrained security personnel to identify counterfeit ID cards.
Because some user systems require information extracted from the machine-readable indicia as well as an image of the card, there is a need for a system capable of reading machine-readable indicia from an ID card as well as photographing the surface of the ID card in a single, compact package. The most convenient embodiment for modern ID cards would incorporate both a barcode scanner and a magnetic strip reader alongside a digital camera. With this combination of coded indicia readers, a vendor or security personnel would be able to simply extract data from many ID cards, including any state Driver License issued in the last few years.
In light of the above, it is an object of the present invention to provide a device combining three popular machine-readable data options and related variations, and further thereby providing an all-in-one peripheral for reading information from virtually any type of ID card, increasing both security and convenience in a smaller, cheaper package.